Exorbitant privilege

Exorbitant privilege refers to the benefit the United States had in the US Dollar being the international reserve currency: the US would not face a balance of payments crisis, because it purchased imports in its own currency. The exorbitant privilege is a term coined in the 1960s by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, then the French Minister of Finance. It is generally misattributed to Charles de Gaulle.